How many times do you have to say “orgasmatron” to sell Colorado’s most famous house?

“In four years? Maybe 4,000,” Realtor Rollie Jordan said.

That’s how long it took her to sell the curvilinear clamshell perched above Interstate 70 in Genesee, a home featured in Woody Allen’s 1973 film “Sleeper.”

In showing after showing, what people wanted to see was the orgasmatron, a tubular elevator accessing five levels of the house. In the film, however, the orgasmatron was used to elevate something else.

“Every time I showed the house, I said that word,” said Jordan of The Kentwood Co. at Cherry Creek.

Jordan – an Ohio native who studied art and photography at the University of Denver and never went back – has sold high-end homes here for 16 years. Usually, they are discreet deals involving celebrities, sports stars, chief executives and successful entrepreneurs. But to sell the Sculptured House, Jordan put on a show.

Jordan hosted camera crews from national TV networks, including CNN, CNBC, ABC, the Discovery Channel and a news channel from Australia. Glam mags, interior-design publications and architectural digests from as far as Hong Kong, Europe and the United Arab Emirates sent photographers.

“I didn’t think I had to be an actress/movie star to sell a house, but literally that’s what I became,” said Jordan.

In 2003, she acted out a scene in the house with Miss Colorado in Carmen Electra’s “Livin’ Large,” a show about rich lifestyles. It was Jordan – a single mother of two – who always got stuck explaining the orgasmatron on camera.

But even after all that publicity, Jordan showed the house to only a dozen qualified prospects. Meantime, she handled several inquiries a week from curiosity seekers. A man from Kansas asked if he could take his wife to the home on their anniversary. “I must have gotten a gazillion calls like that,” she said.

Jordan took me to the house in January 2004. It had been on the market for 18 months and its owner was getting antsy. John Huggins, a software entrepreneur who serves as Denver’s economic-development director, had purchased the house for $1.3 million in 1999 and then spent a couple million more completing it. But he had just reduced his price from $10 million to $7.5 million. And it still looked like a tough sell to me.

The house was designed by an acclaimed architect named Charles Deaton, and had spectacular views. But it was an hour away from any ski slope and you had to drive steep dirt roads to get to it.

In 2004, Jordan said she dealt with a buyer who wanted to use the house for weddings. “We spent months with engineers trying to traverse the mountain, just to do a road to make that into a wedding center,” Jordan said.

Then, this year, a Hong Kong financier negotiated to buy the house but never closed. All the while, Jordan seemed undaunted, investing her time and money marketing the house. “It’s a matter of finding the right person,” she said in 2004.

It was also a matter of breaking up the 15-acre property and lowering the price. Jordan sold two adjoining 5-acre lots for $650,000 each and lowered the price of the home to $4.86 million. Then, through a friend, she met Michael Dunahay, 53, founder of Denver-based Vacation Solutions. Dunahay asked Jordan for a showing and soon bought the house.

Huggins told me he was happy with the deal, though it was far below his original asking price. “If the house had attracted buyers like it attracted publicity, I’d have gotten my $10 million,” he said.

The real estate market may be softening for most folks, but not for Jordan.

“Everyone in my office is crying the blues, but this is the best month I’ve had in 16 years,” she said.

In the past few weeks, she has sold four properties totaling more than $25 million. She sold Eagle’s Nest – a storied $8 million home in Castle Pines – to William Sanger, chief executive of Greenwood Village-based Emergency Medical Services Corp. She sold an $8 million Cherry Hills home to Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei. And she sold an Italian Palazzo in Denver’s Polo Club to a real estate developer.

But she says her work on the “Sleeper” House may never be done: “I’m still getting calls from people asking to see it.”

250 people -- all homeless and high-frequency users of jail, detox and emergency departments at taxpayer expense -- have been tracked down by Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and Mental Health Center of Denver outreach workers and given apartments through Denver's social-impact bond program.